310 LECTURE IX.
that nescience which for a time darkened the self-knowledge of the soul.
These living freed souls enjoy perfect happiness and ease, though still imprisoned in the body. They have obtained true Nirvana, that is, freedom from passion and immunity from being born again. Thus the Bnhad&ra7z,yaka-Upanishad IV. 4, 6 says: c He who is without desire, free from desire, whose desires have been fulfilled, whose desire is the self, his vital spirits do not emigrate; beiug Brahman, he becomes Brahman.'
We should ask at once. Does then the soul,, after it has obtained the knowledge of its true essence, retain its personality?
Personality of tlie Soul.
But such a question is impossible for the true Ved&ntist. For terrestrial personality is to him a fetter and a hindrance, and freedom from that fetter is the highest object of his philosophy, is the highest. bliss to which the Vedantist aspires. That freedom and that highest bliss are simply the result of true knowledge, of a kind of divine self-recollection. Everything else remains as it is. It is true the Vedantist speaks of the individual soul as poured into the Universal Soul like pure water poured into pure water. The two can no longer be distinguished by name and form; yet the Ved&ntist lays great stress on the fact that the pure water is not lost in the pure water, as little as the Atman is lost in Brahman. As Brahman1 is pure knowledge and consciousness, so is the Atman, when freed, pure knowledge and con-
1 Nitya-upalabdhisvarupa. Deussen, p. 346.